Falling Down

Went to Capenhurst today to put some Christmas flowers on dad’s grave, and spotted this victim of Storm Arwen on the edge of the village. It’s not absolutely clear from the photo, but there are three trees that have toppled together here. What I find quite surprising is how shallow the roots seem to be. Fortunately, they fell away from the road and just missed the telephone line above.
A good portion of today has been spent visiting churchyards around Chester as we left arrangements on the various graves belonging to those of mine and Mrs C’s families who are no longer with us. It wasn’t all deceased relatives today though, as we started the day with a visit to my elderly aunt and uncle. They certainly seemed hale and hearty and were delighted to see us, as covid had meant only limited opportunities to visit over the last two years.
Visits to mother, sister and nephew & niece are planned for tomorrow, thus fulfilling all family related duties at this time of year. We are not that close a family that we want to spend Christmas Day together, so any restrictions Boris might bring in will not alter our plans in any way!
We did manage to squeeze in a bit of retail therapy between churchyard visits, and can’t say there was much evidence of people staying away from the shops. Thankfully I found a present for mother quite quickly, and only wanted a few bits from M&S, so we didn’t need to hang around.
We’ve decided not to bother putting up any decorations in the flat this year. We’re only here for three days anyway, and we don’t want to end up like last year when we couldn’t actually take the decorations down until April, due to the post Christmas lockdown. Once bitten, twice shy and all that!